Possible New Epidemic Virus Spread in the Middle East, No Virus or Cure Created Yet

A new health-threatening virus has been spreading in the Middle East. In a recent report from the Huffington Post, the virus has already claimed 100 lives since its first occurrence in Egypt last week. Health experts say it could be far from being a worldwide epidemic, but the virus' alarming increase tells otherwise.

The virus that has been currently causing the alarm is called the "Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Corona virus", or MERS. The MERS virus is a strain that strongly targets bronchial cells. It also evades the human body's immunity and opposes communication response production for pathogens and viruses. Symptoms for the infection include renal failure and sever acute pneumonia.

MERS is also strongly linked with the SARS virus that hit Asia a decade ago. MERS and SARS share the same pattern as these viruses target mainly the respiratory system. The reason they are both fatal to human health is that worse cases give patients shortness of breath that results to quick deaths.

According to health reports and observations, MERS doesn't spread as easily like SARS. In fact it's actually hard to contract the MERS virus. There is no reason to be incautious about the virus though, as the numbers of cases continue to grow in Saudi Arabia. There are recorded 26 or more new cases, and recent 10 deaths.

Health officials warn that the virus is lethal, and no cure has been created. In the fight against this surfacing new virus, health experts are starting to look into the SARS research to create a vaccine. Currently, initial prevention is underway by providing annual influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations to weaken the severity of the MERS infection.

The World Health Organization says the MERS virus could be far off epidemic phenomenon at the moment. Since the virus' detection in 2012, it has remained only in the Middle East and there were no known outbreaks in the other countries.